The WCA Thought-Leaders Forum: U.S. Presidential Candidates Debate Broadband -- a go-to website about the candidates and their broadband policy positions -- was featured as the resource for the Telecom Policy Report's article entilted "19 Presidential Candidates in Search of a Broadband Policy."
Telecom Policy Report cited the WCA as a diplomatic source for broadband policy.
"Its editors thank the Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) for putting together a comprehensive listing of the broadband policy positions of each of the candidates in the primary contests. The WCA tried hard to be non-judgmental and to simply present the candidates and their positions."
The article provides an individual review and commentary on each of the Democrat and Republican candidate's stated broadband polices, emphasizing the importance of increased public awareness for the issue, particularly at a time when the U.S. is falling further behind in broadband penetration worldwide ranking.
Pointing to "Net Neutrality" and "Rural Broadband" as the two favored telecom election topics, Telecom Policy Reports champions certain candidates for speaking out on broadband and points to insufficient planning for their proposed legislation, while scolding others for a failure to address the issue at all.
The WCA encourages Americans to visit the site for the latest updates on broadband policy news detailed on its "Campaign Trail News" page. Submissions of related commentary and/or opinion pieces can be made through the website or by contacting the WCA's Thought Leaders Forum administrator, Meredith Cicerchia.
I speak from experience when I say that broadband policy is a difficult issue to champion in America, since most elected and appointed leaders -- regardless of their political affiliation -- are uninformed about the connection or forward-looking significance between telecom infrastructure investment policy and economic development.
The U.S. is still one of the few developed nations in the world that has no substantive plan of action or meaningful national broadband market development public policy.
Furthermore, the FCC continues to use the presence of 200Kbps, or greater, data service availability in a single ZIP code as their benchmark metric for assessing overall market penetration.